Bond between a Father and Daughter #MagicOfWarmth

My daughter had turned 16 and as every father is concerned for their child, I too was concerned for her. She was no longer a kid but was a teenager and at the age when kids can get lost and be provoked into wrong doings and relationships.

I was referring to books and talking with my friends on how to make my daughter trust me and help her from falling into any problems that could affect her future. I used to follow methods given in the books like spending more time with her, talking to her whenever I came home from work, chatting with her online as that was the first thing that was written in the book “Spend a lot of time with your child.” Next what I did was tried to have the contacts of all her friends and keep talking to them too about my daughter. I used to ask her teachers about her behavior, check her results, question her male friends and try my best to follow each and every step of hers. My wife tried to stop me from being so poky but I told her that I wanted to protect my daughter from any problems that she might get into as her age was such. I did almost everything without making her feel burdened.

I let her go on a trip but asked her to give me every detail of where she is, with who she is, how she is and what time she’ll get back to her hotel.  I called her up so many times to make sure she reaches home safely and even kept in contact with her teacher who was their leader. She came back home after 2 days and just went inside her room crying. I tried to confront her and talk to her but she kept crying and did not answer me. After 2 hours, my wife went inside and my daughter started talking to her. I opened the door to ask her what happened and she scolded me saying that because of me, her friends were mocking her throughout her trip. Her friends kept making fun of her because whenever her phone used to ring, it used to be only my call. She was so upset with me that in anger she told me to stop hounding her.

I did not realize that what I felt was being a protective father, I was not letting my daughter have her own space. I felt that I was giving her freedom to do what she wants to do but it did not make me realize that by constantly calling her and tracking her details would make her feel the embarrassment from her friends. The word “Hounding” kept hitting my ears. I couldn’t understand the difference between being protective and being over-protective and then I noticed a tap on my back. I wiped my tears and saw my daughter standing before me. She held my hands and said that she loved what I was doing for her but she wanted me to trust her judgments as she knew what was good and bad for her. She never would do anything that would betray my trust on her. That was the day when I finally understood that books do not teach us anything but it’s our own love that can help us build a relationship with our children. That day my daughter and I shared the magic of warmth and became friends.



I’m blogging about my #MagicOfWarmth moment at BlogAdda in association with Parachute Advansed Hot Oil